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We like to get into the maker spirit at Ars, whether it's e-mail servers, laptop hammocks, or hacked toys. And when DIY projects evolve into stories, it's because the project centers on the interests of whichever writer is at the helm.

After coming on as a full-time Arsian a few months ago, I didn’t even get a chance to request or pitch a project of my own before my maker adventure was assigned. The rest of the staff saw my profile’s tidbit about board game addiction, and they insisted I formalize my fandom: I had to design, test, and produce an Ars Technica board game themed around the site.

This is tough for a few reasons.

I lost a lot of my childhood to board games, and not in terms of sheer hours. Rather, the spirit of my childhood—innocence, wonder, whimsy—was sapped by frequent, tainted games of Monopoly. In some ways, you can blame my older brother and his abuse of power as the game’s “banker,” which meant he seemed to always eke out victories by way of miraculous, mid-game acquisitions. (I’m sure he found a way to cheat at Connect Four, as well.)

But Monopoly has issues beyond crooked bankers. It’s a dice-driven slog in which players have little strategy at their disposal other than buy-or-don’t-buy, and the only meaningful interaction players have with each other is demanding rent payments. It’s not designed to maximize either fun or smarts, yet its decades of success made it an archetype for so many other luck-based board games (and their cheeky mascots). Our family closet was full of similar clunkers, not to mention a broken copy of Mouse Trap.

That’s because modern board games are better balanced and rely more on natural checks and balances—particularly when they require players to barter and negotiate in order to win. The current era’s biggest hits have often come from Germany, as well, which is probably why they include so many farms and trains. (Weirdly, there are no megahit, David Hasselhoff-themed adventures yet.)

So the board-shaped chip on my shoulder has mostly dissolved, but the flood of great, newer games creates an entirely different problem for a creating a new game: intimidation. How can any amateur compete with decades of largely-German iteration on the hobby?

There’s also the issue of stepping up and creating a game concept of my own after spending, er, 18 years posing as a games critic. That’s a level of put-up-or-shut-up I haven’t faced since starting a band while working as a music writer in a long-ago era. Spoiler alert: The band wasn’t great. But the brief experience of faking like a drummer served as a good reminder that sometimes, a person in my position can use an ample portion of humble pie.

In that light, I throw myself on the mercy of the board gaming industry with Ars Boardnica, a multi-part series detailing the development of Ars’ own board game. We’ll describe the creative, nitty-gritty beginnings, recount our playtests, offer a print-and-play version at the mid-way point, and work out exactly how to produce playable versions of our labors. Heck, if the game turns out well and there's reader interest, we'll see about making it possible for everyone to buy one (though no promises).

Before we can do any of that, of course, we have to narrow down our creative vision. We humbly request your direct help in the process.

The proposal

I have casually spoken to a few game design pals about this idea over the years, most notably Andy Schatz, the IGF award winner behind the video game Monaco. Before focusing on that game’s creation, which delivers a cartoony, four-player heist adventure, Schatz had designs on making a board game based on his lesser-known Venture Africa series.

In early 2013, we played a prototype version of the board game at his San Diego home, which he likened to “battle chess,” though not in the way you might remember from ‘80s computers. Rather, the two-player board game put players in control of animal armies, and each piece had to keep neighboring animals and terrain in mind as they attempted moves and captures. Crocodiles move faster through rivers, zebras want to end turns next to certain creatures, and so on.

The game was mechanically interesting, but… it wasn’t so fun. Every time Schatz sent the prototype to board game producers and designers, he got that condemnation as feedback along with a request for “more luck.” The best games find the right balance between strategy, control, chance, and surprise, he realized. At the end of the day, games should force even the best players to be agile and creative.

While that combination is way, way easier said than done, it still serves as a good guiding principle. We’re not making strategy-obsessed chess, nor are we making a random-card-guided kind of Candy Land. How exactly do we split the diff?

If we’re ever going to finish this homebrew project in a reasonable amount of time, we’ll be best off hewing closely to an established genre's mechanics. Once we decide on an archetype, we will iterate and create something unique; we’re not going to make a version of Carcassonne where all of the “meeples” simply look like Peter Bright for example.

This is where you, dear reader, come in. Three reasonable game concepts, for three to six players each, are listed below, and we’d love your feedback on which is your favorite. On top of that, tweaks and suggestions for those archetypes are welcome. We’ll cull your feedback and use it in crafting the next Ars Boardnica post—one where we get started on making Ars’ first board game.

(If you have a hankering to tell us “hey, my idea is better,” please at least contribute a pick for your favorite of the three first. Because if that is undeniably the case, you should seriously go design it yourself, which we think would be awesome!)

The possibilities

ONE: A Catan-like “Euro” game. The object will be to accumulate a set number of “victory points” before anyone else does, and players will do so by accumulating resources, completing objectives, and sharing or trading items with other players. Other examples in this vein include Agricola and the D&D-themed Lords of Waterdeep.

TWO: A Pandemic-like. The game will pit everyone against “the board,” meaning players will have to cooperate to accomplish certain tasks before either time runs out or a certain penalty condition ends the game. (Ideally, our version will allow one of the players to become a traitor and ally with the board at the game’s midway point, because, hey, that’d be fun.) Other games in this style include Forbidden Island and Hanabi.

THREE: An adventure game a la Munchkin. Players will pick a few special, unique powers and enter a multi-room dungeon, where every room becomes more difficult than the last—and the resulting loot after each battle gets better in kind. However, players will also secretly play cards and fulfill personal, private objectives that will help them claim the big treasure at the end of the dungeon. So while they must team up to survive, they must also disrupt each other’s personal quests to claim total, end-game victory. (If we go this route, by the way, I propose a Super Mario RPG-style mechanic in battles, where dice rolls simulate the “perfect timing” of attacks.)

If you must know, I’m initially leaning towards the third archetype. But I can be swayed!

Once we discuss possible directions to take, the next post will sum up the basic game plan, ideas for an aesthetic (an angry Ars Technica staff meeting? A modern take on American wiretapping in which players control real political figures?), and a more formalized roadmap of the project to come.

In the meantime, it's time for your input, Boardnicans. Take to the comments section, vote for an archetype, offer gameplay ideas, suggest game titles, and otherwise go nuts.